This week's assignment was to start something that somebody else will finish. I took my discarded attempt from the last Disquiet prompt and was able to make something out of it, so this is very much about starting and finishing things.
I recorded myself dropping an ice cube into a glass and sliced it up. I noticed every iteration of the ice-cube drop had certain repeating "gestures:" a big inhale from me, the squeaking of the ice-cube tray as I loosened the pieces, and then the inevitable clink in the glass.
For the first iteration of about 30 seconds, I rearranged the audio to be a sort of loose cannon - the first ice-cube drop is layered with the second ice-cube drop, layered so that the clinks happen at the same time, but the other, non-intentional sounds (the breathing, the squeaking) will happen at different times.
The second iteration, each entrance of the clink is repeated until all four are playing simultaneously. I also added a loop underneath it that feels like a beat (but is actually looped ice-cube sounds). A drumkit version of that loop also begins to sneak in here.
The third iteration is like the second, except the drumkit is much more prominent.
That took about 1 minute and 30 seconds, which wasn't long enough, so I copied and pasted everything (repetition is the artist's friend!). However, this time the drumkit slowly fades out, so in that sense the piece may feel like a palindrome.
Then I panned it hard left, as per the instructions.
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More on this 315th weekly Disquiet Junto project (First Chair: Record the first third of a trio) at:
https://disquiet.com/0315/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0315-first-chair/
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is adapted from a photo by Martin Kenny and is used via Flickr thanks to a Creative Commons license:
https://flic.kr/p/neoFUH
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/